Chapter 6
Jade
I wasn’t built for other people. I was built for a quiet home in nature where I didn’t have to worry about who thought what about me. I was built to live for myself, dammit.
But I felt rotten. Guess there was no winning.
I hadn’t meant to tell off Alyssa the way I had, I’d just been so… overstimulated, so antsy knowing everyone in the bar wanted me out. But I did what I went in for, and I didn’t have any good reason to worry about what Alyssa of all people thought of me.
She was friends with Daniela. And from how it looked at that party, friends with everyone right away.
Why wouldn’t she have been? I’d been like that once…
friends with everyone, the center of a thriving community.
But my time had come and gone. Now it was Alyssa’s spot, and if she was falling in alongside everyone else, I was on her chopping block, too.
Better I was the one to push her away instead.
But no matter how much I tried to convince myself I didn’t care, I still hid it from Cat how much I’d been in and out of the party.
I gave her a couple of Cat’s cakes and her number—knowing what both of them were like, they’d probably be able to hit it off.
And maybe if Alyssa was outside of the drama, she’d be able to make friends with Cat before she was turned against her.
It was as good an approach as any to get Cat some links back into the group, get her some meaningful friendships again, before I jumped ship.
But I glazed over at work all day the next day. And when I was almost finished, I groaned at a message from Cat.
getting coffee at five-thirty at Sleepy Hollow! come join me, I’ve got stuff to share
I was of half a mind to say no. But I did have to face up to what had happened at the party and explain why I gave Alyssa her number without asking.
So I grudgingly agreed, and when I finished, I got back to my house to spend my in-between time testing my scent throws.
I had one with a peach scent I was trying to get balanced, and I’d paired it with a sandalwood and cinnamon, but it was being obstinate—it was either cloying and unbalanced, or the peach was completely gone, and I sat frustrated at my candle-work table when I burned the sample and found it just smelled like sandalwood again.
Nayla had a birthday coming up, and she loved peach, but…
why was I even bothering so much? It wasn’t like she’d be looking for a birthday present from me anyway.
I found it was hard to just not, though.
Maybe a force of habit. Or maybe I was in denial.
I was in a foul mood that was about more than just the candle as I got out of the house and took my car to the café around the corner from the town center, Sleepy Hollow, complete with a cartoon Rip Van Winkle on the sign clutching a cup of coffee.
I pushed in through the front door, bell tinkling overhead, and into where the smell of coffee and caramel syrup wrapped around me like a sweet cookie, and I got a cold flush at the sight of Cat in the plush booths of the corner seat, together with Alyssa.
Neither of them seemed to notice me coming in, and I froze, watching the table warily.
I’d expected them to get on well… but that was an understatement for this. I had not anticipated they’d be going out for coffee together not even twenty-four hours later. Alyssa seemed to be… trying to pick up on the signs Cat was using. She was clumsy with it. Trying, though.
“Hey, Jade,” the barista said behind me, and I jumped.
Alyssa turned with her brow furrowed, and she caught me in the last instant of me staring at her before I turned to the barista, my cheeks flushed.
Seemed like she was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
That was typical Cat for you… I shouldn’t have been staring.
“Hey—I’ll do an almond milk iced latte, please,” I said, pulling out my card before I’d even finished ordering. Maybe part of me wondered if I could just grab my coffee and run, but no dice if I even did decide to chicken out—Cat came up next to me with her hand on my shoulder.
“There you are,” she said. “I was wondering if you were going to join us.”
I turned and gave her a wary look, tapping my card to the reader and putting it away before I spoke just in sign. “Why did you invite her?” I said, using just the sign for A for her name, and she grinned.
“Don’t worry, she got a name sign.”
“Oh… lovely. What is it?”
She bit down on a big grin, and she made the sign for tree—her elbow planted on her palm, hand up, and brought the tree falling down. She whispered. “I told her it means blonde.”
“You’re evil,” I said.
She stepped around to face me as I moved towards the handoff plane waiting for my drink, and she signed, “You didn’t talk to people at the party, you gave her my number.”
“I know. I meant to apologize.”
“Why?”
“I thought you two would get along well.”
She raised her eyebrows. “But you wouldn’t get along well with her?”
I looked away, fumbling with the signs. “I… said we won’t be friends.”
She dropped her hands by her sides, staring at me for a second before she said it out loud this time. “Why?”
“Because,” I said, responding out loud before I switched back to sign, resigning to using the falling-tree name sign for her.
“Alyssa and Daniela are friends. Daniela’s mad at me because of…
everything. I don’t think Alyssa will like me.
If she doesn’t mind me now, she will later.
Best to remove myself from that and not get in your way. ”
She shook her head with a sad look. “I don’t want you to just not have any friends because of me.”
“Never was one for friends,” I said.
“Jade,” she said out loud, putting a hand on my arm. “C’mon. Please, just for me? Make an effort with her.”
I raked my hand back through my hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been rude with her. But what’s done is done. I’m not going to mess with your chat.”
“She wants to talk to you.”
I paused. “She—does?” Unless she was angry at me and wanted to have it out with me, I doubted it. I also realized I’d said it out loud, and she does wasn’t an easy sentence to lipread, and Cat beamed.
“I have no idea what you just said, so I’ll assume it was yay okay let’s go.”
“I think you know it wasn’t that,” I said, switching back to sign. “Why does she want to talk to me?”
“Because she’s friendly!” She softened, meeting my gaze, lowering her voice to something serious.
“Jade, I mean it. I think this could be helpful. For you, and for me, and for her, too. Kind of like… building bridges. Just because I’m not friends with Drew anymore doesn’t mean we should all avoid everything with everyone. ”
“I… I guess, but…”
“Please?”
Dammit, she was right. I wasn’t about to tell her how seriously I was thinking of leaving Paxton Ridge—what had been a cautious musing had turned into a cold, serious sense of resolution today, and I’d been going around the town seeing it from an outsider’s perspective, like I was already gone.
But even without that, if I wanted Cat to have a chance to rebuild bridges with everyone, the least I could do was try to make things all right with Alyssa.
Her showing up really was perfectly timed for this.
“Okay,” I signed, at last. “I’ll talk. Just a little bit. Just to be friendly.”
She hugged me. “Thank you so much. I’m sure you’ll like her!”
I hugged her back. She squeezed me.
“What’s that?” she said. “You said you’re going to be best friends with her forever? Oh, that’s great! I’m so happy.”
I gave a knowing eyeroll to the barista, who was finishing up my drink, and he chuckled along with, knowing the drill full well. I couldn’t sign for Cat when she was hugging me. And she was no stranger to taking the opportunity to say something she knew I would argue with when she hugged me.
But I got my drink, and I went with Cat, walking stiffly to where Alyssa gave me a polite smile, standing up slowly from the rustic wooden table by the windows. “Hi,” she said, her hands held defensively at her stomach, body language tense. “Sorry, I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“Likewise. Cat likes to invite random people to the same thing without telling them about each other.”
She laughed nervously, scratching the back of her head.
“Yeah? I guess in a way it’s like I’m a real resident of the town, then.
Like my initiation rites. I mean, not that I’m getting initiated or being a serious resident, I’m just…
staying in Daniela’s basement.” She winced when she said Daniela’s name.
Guess she really had heard every detail of the drama.
She rushed to speak over it. “Sorry, I’m just running my mouth,” she said.
“Do you want me to leave you to it? I mean, I don’t want to get in the way of your friend time. ”
“Hey. None of that,” Cat said. “I caught you saying that! You’re not leaving after ten minutes of me. I’ll take it as a grave offense!”
“No, it’s not that,” Alyssa said with an awkward laugh, clearly trying to defuse the tension and struggling. “Just, um…”
I decided, finally, to release her from the suffering. “You’re allowed to say Daniela’s name,” I said, and she winced so hard she looked like she’d shrivel up into herself and disappear.
“Sorry, I just get nervous and then I talk a lot when I do.”
“I know you’re friends with Daniela,” I said. “I’m not angry that you are. And I’m not kicking you out, either. Cat would never let me hear the end of it if I did.”
She watched as I signed the keywords while I spoke, her posture relaxing a little, looking between me and Cat, before she softened into a smile, sinking back into her seat. “Well… okay,” she said. “I just don’t want to annoy you. I mean, Jesus, I already slapped you in the face and everything.”
I smirked despite myself. “It’s a very pretty ring.”